Market Insights: Mar 21, 2024

Financial Markets:

1. Stock Market Performance: Influenced by the dovish policy of the Federal Reserve overnight, the Nikkei 225 Index rose by 1.28%, reaching 40,511.55 points, and hitting a new historical high. The South Korean KOSPI index also opened up by 1.5%.
2. Bond Market: U.S. short-term bond yields plummeted, and the 10-year U.S. Treasury yield initially rose after the Federal Reserve's decision but fell back later. The U.S. dollar quickly turned and dropped from a two-week high, while the Japanese yen briefly rallied, breaking above 151.
3. Commodities: Gold prices rose by $30, nearing an all-time high. However, oil prices retreated after two consecutive rises, leaving the five-month high behind, with a mid-day drop of 2%. Meanwhile, Bitcoin strongly rebounded after falling below $61,000, breaking through $67,000.

Corporate Earnings:

1. Pinduoduo: Fourth-quarter advertising revenue reached 48.7 billion yuan, up 57% year over year, far exceeding market expectations. Temu's transactional income was 6 billion yuan higher than expected, and the company's overall operating profit reached 22.4 billion yuan, an increase of 5.7 billion yuan from the previous quarter.
2. Tencent: Fourth-quarter advertising revenue reached a new high, although its gaming business declined. The company believes gaming revenue will improve starting from the second quarter of this year. In the short term, it will enhance advertising revenue, and in the medium to long term, it will strengthen the cloud service business. Tencent's U.S. stocks closed up 1.75%.
3. Micron Technology: Published second-quarter earnings report that exceeded expectations, and the guidance for the next quarter was also very positive, causing the stock price to surge more than 16% after-hours.
4. Apple: CEO Tim Cook stated that there is no place more important to Apple’s supply chain than China. Cook emphasized that over the past 30 years, Apple has been expanding its supply chain in China and continuously increasing its investment.

Technology Industry:

1. NVIDIA: NVIDIA plans to purchase Samsung's High Bandwidth Memory (HBM) chips to meet the demand for faster processing speeds in artificial intelligence processors. Meanwhile, Samsung is accelerating its pace to catch up with SK hynix, which recently began mass production of its next-generation HBM chips.

A-share Market:

1. Market Performance: The A-share market opened with an upward trend today, with all major indices showing strong performance. Leading sectors in gains include precious metals, Kimi concept, short interactive games, Sora concept, storage chips, cultural media, and AIGC concept, while sectors such as car dismantling, coal industry, CROke, and optical communication modules saw declines.
2. Gold Prices: Today's gold prices broke through the key level of $2,200 per ounce, reaching a high of $2,222.9, setting a new historical record.